When asked about the delay, Dr. Kirwan explained that the initial timeline was simply impractical. “I don’t think anybody fully appreciates the magnitude of this challenge. We are being asked to invent and develop a funding formula for an entirely new system of education, that will be at the level of the best-performing systems in the world. We’re supposed to do that in six months? Give me a break!”

Dr. Kirwan expects the Commission to release its final recommendations in time for the 2019 session of the Maryland General Assembly.

In the meantime, the Commission’s four working groups will continue working to develop a consensus on the design, implementation plan, and cost for each of the preliminary recommendations. Once the working groups have completed their work, they will present their recommendations and cost estimates to the full Commission. The chair will work with staff and consultants to develop a draft cost estimate based on the recommendations of the working groups (as considered by the full Commission) for the full Commission’s consideration.

Dr. Kirwan cautioned that simply spending more money on Maryland’s public education system is unlikely to improve student outcomes. “It’s not just how much you spend, it’s what you spend it on. That is part and parcel to the recommendations we’re making,” Kirwan said.

Greater spending must come with greater accountability, according to Chair Kirwan. “There is inadequate accountability, and that’s what we’re trying to address,” he said.

Chair Kirwan said he looks forward to working with Governor Larry Hogan and the Maryland General Assembly on legislation to implement the Commission’s recommendations. “I give Governor Hogan and the Legislature a lot of credit for appointing this commission because they recognize that Maryland’s future and the future well-being of our citizens depend upon a high-quality education, that’s the future of our economy.”

The 2016 Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education was created by legislation introduced in the General Assembly. The Commission membership parallels that of the earlier Thornton Commission.

MACo advocates for adequate, fair, and reasonable funding for all of Maryland’s students, and urges State policymakers to sustain a robust level of public education and school construction funding.

MACo’s Summer Conference will include a session on education funding and accountability, and how to best ensure that Maryland students receive a fair, equitable, and high-quality education. The session, “Angling for Educational Excellence: Kirwan 2.0,” is scheduled for 10:15 am – 11:15 am on Saturday, August 18, 2018.

The 2018 MACo Summer Conference will be held August 15-18 at the Roland Powell Convention Center in Ocean City, Maryland. This year’s theme is “Water, Water Everywhere.”

The National Tax Lien Association (NTLA) is holding its annual conference for tax collectors, lien purchasers, and mere lien aficionados at the The Gaylord Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor on Wednesday, October 24 and Thursday, October 25, 2018.

And, since this target audience likely minds their wallets, there is an early bird discount for those who register before the end of August.

Not yet a tax lien aficionado, but would like to be? NTLA hosts its National Tax Lien Association Academy right before the conference gets into gear, on Monday, October 22 and Tuesday, October 23, also at National Harbor.

NTLA was founded in 1997 as a non-profit professional trade organization for the tax lien industry. It represents investors, lenders, service providers, and government officials in regards to tax lien sales, as well as promoting the benefit of those sales as reliable income for county budgets. NTLA provides networking and training opportunities for professionals and novices in the tax lien and tax sale industry.

Like this:

Eliminating the gap in compensation between teachers and high-status professions that require comparable levels of education is a major piece of the [Kirwan] Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education’s preliminary report. The High-Quality Teachers and Leaders workgroup, one of four workgroups tasked with costing out the Commission’s preliminary recommendations, today discussed a potential model for increasing teacher pay commensurate with advancement on the career ladder.

Maryland Occupations/Salaries: Comparable Occupations List

According to the chart below, teachers in Maryland earn approximately 20% less than professionals working in comparable fields. The workgroup debated adjusting the “comparable profession” salaries to reflect a 10-month work year, which is typical for teachers. While the workgroup ultimately decided against adjusting the numbers, they did remove “Inspectors, Testers, Sorters, Samplers, and Weighers” from the list (the lowest paying comparable occupation), rejecting it as a similar profession.

Framework for Phase-in of Teacher Salary Increases

According to the Commission’s preliminary report, advancement up the ladder should be based on the acquisition of specified knowledge and skills, rigorous evidence of success as a classroom teacher, and/or additional responsibilities commensurate with the additional compensation. The chart below depicts a significant pay increase for teachers who obtain National Board Certification.

Notably, after determining the draft plan would fail to close the compensation gap between teachers and comparable professions, the workgroup asked staff to make a number of changes, including replacing the 10% pay increase in year four with a 40% or 50% pay increase in year four. Commission staff will present cost estimates for the proposed changes at the next meeting.

According to the workgroup, a systematic phase-in of salary increases for teachers (above and beyond cost-of-living adjustments) is necessary in order to stem the decline in teacher recruitment and retention and to begin reducing the gap between compensation levels for teachers and other professions requiring comparable levels of education.

Teacher and staff salaries drive education costs, often making up for more than half of school system budgets. The workgroup acknowledged that raising teacher pay will also result in higher teacher retirement costs and other post-employment benefits. Commission staff will present those fiscal estimates at the next meeting.

The Commission’s four working groups will continue working to develop a consensus on the design, implementation plan, and cost for each of the preliminary recommendations. Once the working groups have completed their work, they will present their recommendations and cost estimates to the full Commission. The chair will work with staff and consultants to develop a draft cost estimate based on the recommendations of the working groups (as considered by the full Commission) for the full Commission’s consideration.

The 2016 Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education was created by legislation introduced in the General Assembly. The Commission membership parallels that of the earlier Thornton Commission.

MACo is entitled to two representatives on the Commission, under the legislation. Montgomery County Councilmember Craig Rice, MACo’s Education Subcommittee Chair, and Allegany County Commissioner Bill Valentine, MACo’s Education Subcommittee Vice Chair, represent MACo on the Commission.

MACo’s Summer Conference will include a session on education funding and accountability, and how to best ensure that Maryland students receive a fair, equitable, and high-quality education. The session, “Angling for Educational Excellence: Kirwan 2.0,” is scheduled for 10:15 am – 11:15 am on Saturday, August 18, 2018.

The 2018 MACo Summer Conference will be held August 15-18 at the Roland Powell Convention Center in Ocean City, Maryland. This year’s theme is “Water, Water Everywhere.”

Like this:

Baltimore Sun reporters Ian Duncan and Pamela Wood are digging into an issue that has plagued Baltimore City and Baltimore County for years: who owes what for the ages-old water delivery system that serves the region.

The County is refusing to pay the City’s bill of $23 million – money allegedly owed by the County for the difference between the actual cost to the City to provide water to County residents, and the cost the County bills its residents for that water. The County underbills it residents for the water, and then pays the difference to the City – and currently contests the amount the City is charging.

In the financial year that ended in summer 2014, the city issued the county a bill of about $4.8 million to make up for customers’ underpayment. Another for just under $15.5 million followed in 2015, and a bill for $2.4 million was issued in 2016. The figure for 2017 was still being calculated at the time the consultants finished writing their report.

The county hasn’t paid any of those bills, the [City’s] consultants reported.

Duncan followed the article with a tweet referencing Moody’s recent rating downgrade of the water system:

Sure enough, last December, Moody’s Investors Services downgraded the City’s senior lien water revenue bonds to Aa3 from Aa2, and its subordinate revenue bonds to A1 from Aa3. This affects nearly $1 billion in rated debt, according to the release. It cites the following reasons:

narrowing coverage levels due to recent revenue losses that breached the total debt service coverage rate covenant in fiscal 2016 and 2017, decreased liquidity to cover revenue shortfalls, and an elevated debt position that will increase given additional capital funding plans.

Moody’s cites as a potential reason to downgrade the ratings further:

Lack of reconciliation with Baltimore County on year-end true up payments[.]

Last session, MACo supportedSenate Bill 709/House Bill 923, which helps homeowners avoid going to tax sale over unpaid water bills by giving counties the tools to address the problem long before those bills become overdue. The bill passed both house and was signed by the Governor.

The previous session and over the interim, MACo worked hard to stave off legislation which would have prevented counties from collecting overdue water bills – a move which, without a doubt, would have further undermined billing systems’ bond ratings.

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In a move that will only make financial purists crazed, the Baltimore City Council has voted to reject a budget transfer for $21 million to cover police overtime from the previous fiscal year – money that, of course, has already been spent.

This is a clear message that the status quo is not going to work anymore.

Last year the Baltimore Police Department spent $47.2 million on overtime. According to the Sun, $16 million was budgeted. From the coverage:

The committee vote comes as leaders on the City Council have announced monthly accountability meetings about the police department, focusing on both the agency’s budget and its crime-fighting strategies.

The city law department also is auditing the Police Department’s overtime, but has yet to make the results of the audit public.

Children participating in Tennessee’s Voluntary Pre-K (VPK) program were more likely than those who didn’t attend the program to need special education services and showed higher instances of school rule violations in later grades, according to the latest results of an ongoing study by researchers at Vanderbilt University.

The researchers also found no differences in attendance rates between students who enrolled in the pre-K program and those who didn’t, and that VPK had no effects on attendance and retention in the later grades.

The inauspicious findings of the current study offer a cautionary tale about expecting too much from state pre-k programs. The fact that the Head Start Impact study – the only other randomized study of a contemporary publicly funded pre-k program – also found few positive effects after the pre-k year adds further cautions (Puma et al., 2012).

State-funded pre-k is a popular idea, but for the sake of the children and the promise of pre-K, credible evidence that a rather typical state pre-k program is not accomplishing its goals should provoke some reassessment. It is apparent that the phrase “high-quality pre-K” does not convey enough about what the critical elements of a program should be.

Expanding “high-quality” pre-kindergarten for all four-year-olds and low-income three-year-olds is a hallmark of the [Kirwan] Commission on Innovation and Excellence’s preliminary report. As previously reported on Conduit Street, the Early Childhood Education workgroup, one of four workgroups tasked with costing out the Commission’s preliminary recommendations, last week released initial cost estimates for expanding high-quality, full-day pre-K in Maryland — and the numbers are staggering.

According to the workgroup, expanding “high-quality,” full-day pre-K to low-income (300% FPL) three- and four-year-olds in Maryland would cost approximately $1 billion.

The Commission’s four working groups will continue working to develop a consensus on the design, implementation plan, and cost for each of the preliminary recommendations. Once the working groups have completed their work, they will present their recommendations and cost estimates to the full Commission. The chair will work with staff and consultants to develop a draft cost estimate based on the recommendations of the working groups for the full Commission’s consideration.

The 2016 Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education was created by legislation introduced in the General Assembly. The Commission membership parallels that of the earlier Thornton Commission.

Learn more about the Kirwan Commission and its efforts to ensure that Maryland students receive a fair, equitable, and high-quality education at the MACo Summer Conference session “Angling for Educational Excellence: Kirwan 2.0.” The session will be held from 10:15 -11:15 am on Saturday, August 18.

Speakers:

Dr. William “Brit” Kirwan, Chair, Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education

The Honorable Craig Rice, Council Member, Montgomery County

The Honorable William Valentine, Commissioner, Allegany County

Moderator: The Honorable Maggie McIntosh, Maryland House of Delegates

The 2018 MACo Summer Conference will be held August 15-18 at the Roland Powell Convention Center in Ocean City, Maryland. This year’s theme is “Water, Water Everywhere.”

The House of Representatives has passed the Unfunded Mandates Information and Transparency Act (UMITA), but the Senate has yet to act. The National Association of Counties supports the legislation.

The National Association of Counties is urging US Senate action on legislation recently passed by the US House of Representatives that would increase transparency on federal unfunded mandates and their effect on State and County governments.

From NACo:

UMITA sets a variety of guidelines to further require federal agencies to analyze the effects of federal regulations on state and local governments. First, it would set specific standards for federal agency consultation with state and local governments when that agency is considering a new rule or regulation. UMITA would also require federal agencies to include consultation activities with state and local governments in annual compliance statements. Additionally, it allows the chair or ranking member of any standing or select congressional committee leadership to request a “lookback” of regulations to evaluate the financial impact of federal regulations.

According to NACo, the U.S. Senate has not taken up the companion version of the UMITA bill. NACo encourages counties to ask their senators to support this legislation or similar bills.

The MACo Summer Conference will feature a federal policy update from Maryland’s US Senator Ben Cardin on Friday, August 17, 2018; 10:30 am – 11:30 am. In a town hall setting, Senator Cardin will give an update on legislation in the 115th Congress and speak with county elected officials about their top priorities.

Senator Cardin was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006. He is a senior member of the Environment & Public Works Committee and Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committee and serves on the Senate Finance Committee.

Legislation passed during the 2018 session (excluding the operating and capital budget bills) is anticipated to result in a net decrease in general fund revenues by $319.7 million. General fund expenditures are anticipated to decrease by $184.6 million in fiscal 2019, mitigating the effects of the decreased revenue stream and resulting in a net negative impact of $135.1 million.

Interestingly, the report features a section on the costs of new State mandates on local governments. DLS counts 22 new mandates on local governments as a result of the 2018 legislative session. A “mandate” is defined as “a directive in a bill requiring a local government unit to perform a task or assume a responsibility that has a discernible fiscal impact on the local government unit[.]”

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County budget and public safety representatives assemble this week to determine data and information to support the work of the Commission to Advance Next Generation 9-1-1 Across Maryland, which will report in December.

MACo called a work group this week of County Public Safety Answering Point Directors, Emergency Services Directors, and County Budget and Procurement experts and a Public Safety Communications Specialist to begin assembling information to support the work of the Commission to Advance Next Generation 9-1-1 Across Maryland. The Commission will be appointed this year and it first report will be due in December, 2018.

The Commission’s December report must cover seven subjects, the first of which, is the needs, both capital and operating, to bring efficient and effective Next Generation 9–1–1 technology and service across Maryland, and estimated costs required to effect this priority outcome. This first item was the subject of discussion yesterday.

The group identified existing information on capital and operating needs, and delved into the difficult topic of identifying future personnel needs that will be associated with a transition to new technology, and with providing enhanced services to the public.

The ability of Emergency Communications Specialists to access more accurate call location information more quickly, and to employ new data gathering techniques, such as receiving text and video data from those who contact 9-1-1 is the aim of Counties governments who are eager and committed to making Maryland a leader in implementation of Next Generation.

Steve Souder, a nationally recognized authority on 9-1-1, participated in the meeting of counties this week. Souder is representative of the Association of Public–Safety Communications Officials International Mid–Eastern Chapter, member of Maryland’s Emergency Number Systems Board, and the former Public Safety Communications Director of Fairfax, Virginia. According to Souder, the establishment of the statewide Commission will place Maryland ahead of other States in its work toward a coordinated transition of all counties to Next Generation 9-1-1.

Expanding high-quality pre-kindergarten for all four-year-olds and low-income three-year-olds is a hallmark of the [Kirwan] Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education’s preliminary report. The Early Childhood Education workgroup, one of four workgroups tasked with costing out the Commission’s preliminary recommendations, today released initial cost estimates for expanding high-quality, full-day pre-K in Maryland — and the numbers are staggering.

Cost of Expanding Pre-K in Maryland

According to the education consulting firm Augenblick, Palaich, And Associates (APA) and the Maryland State Department of Education, expanding high-quality, full-day pre-K to low income (300% FPL) four-year-olds would cost approximately $230 million in 2019.

By 2024, the cost for expanding high-quality, full-day pre-K to low-income (300% FPL) four-year-olds jumps to approximately $456 million.

Notably, while the Commission’s preliminary report calls for expanding pre-K to all four-year-olds, these estimates only account for low-income four-year-olds.

The cost of expanding high-quality, full-day pre-K to all low-income (300% FPL) three-year-olds would cost approximately $456 million.

One Commissioner called the numbers “staggering,” while others questioned whether the State should include the cost of high-quality pre-K as part of its compensatory program. The compensatory program is designed to provide extra support to students coming from backgrounds of poverty. For every student who qualifies for Free and Reduced Price Meals, school systems receive an amount equal to 97% of their per-pupil foundation amount.

As Maryland expands pre-kindergarten for young children in the state, building the capacity of the early childhood education (ECE) workforce will be a key issue. The workgroup plans to review the current requirements for ECE educators before presenting their final recommendations to the full Commission.

Judy Centers/Early Childhood Development Centers

Judith P. Hoyer Early Child Care and Family Education Centers, known as “Judy Centers,” offer a wide range of services for low-income children and their families. Maryland’s Network of 25 Family Support Centers provide free, comprehensive services to families, targeting parents and their young children.

The Early Childhood Education workgroup will recommend expanding Judy Centers and Family Support Centers to provide and coordinate access to education and support services for at-risk young children ages 0-5 and their families. The plan calls for the expansion of Judy Centers to be phased in over ten years, with the neediest communities receiving the highest priority.

MSDE will be required to consider geographic diversity when selecting a Title I school to locate a new Judy Center and coordinate placement of new Judy Centers in order to serve multiple Title I schools in a high needs area or region.

Like Judy Centers, the expansion of Family Support Centers will be phased in over ten years, with priority in opening new Family Support Centers going to on the most underserved neediest communities.

MSDE will be required to consider geographic diversity when selecting regions to locate a new Family Support Center and coordinate placement of new Family Support Centers in order to serve multiple, adjacent counties or areas in need of a Family Support Center. Currently, nine counties (Calvert, Charles, Garrett, Harford, Howard, St. Mary’s, Somerset, Wicomico, and Worcester) do not have a Family Support Center.

The workgroup’s plan calls on the State to open three new centers a year so that by FY2029, there will be 30 new Family Support Centers.

The Commission’s four working groups will continue working to develop a consensus on the design, implementation plan, and cost for each of the preliminary recommendations. Once the working groups have completed their work, they will present their recommendations and cost estimates to the full Commission. The chair will work with staff and consultants to develop a draft cost estimate based on the recommendations of the working groups (as considered by the full Commission) for the full Commission’s consideration.

The 2016 Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education was created by legislation introduced in the General Assembly. The Commission membership parallels that of the earlier Thornton Commission.

MACo is entitled to two representatives on the Commission, under the legislation. Montgomery County Councilmember Craig Rice, MACo’s Education Subcommittee Chair, and Allegany County Commissioner Bill Valentine, MACo’s Education Subcommittee Vice Chair, represent MACo on the Commission.

The Commission’s next meeting will be held on Friday, July 13, 2018; 9:30 am-5:30 pm, at 120 House Office Building (House Appropriations Committee Room), 6 Bladen Street, Annapolis, Maryland.

The Commission is expected to complete its work in time for the 2019 session of the General Assembly, and has recently sharpened its focus on education formulas — including the pattern and role of county funding. At this year’s MACo Summer Conference, attend this general session to learn how county governments could be affected by the Commission’s final report.

Angling for Educational Excellence: Kirwan 2.0

Description: The [Kirwan] Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education was formed in 2016 to answer two questions: Should the state revise current education funding formulas? And what major new education policies must be enacted to put Maryland public schools on par with the best in the world? The Commission released preliminary policy recommendations earlier this year, and has recently sharpened its focus on education formulas — including the pattern and role of county funding. Spending formulas, systematic accountability, and resource equity are all hot topics. How will the Kirwan Commission’s recommendations affect county governments? This session focuses on education funding and accountability, and how to best ensure that Maryland students receive a fair, equitable, and high-quality education.

Speakers:

Dr. William “Brit” Kirwan, Chair, Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education

The Honorable Craig Rice, Council Member, Montgomery County

The Honorable William Valentine, Commissioner, Allegany County

Moderator: The Honorable Maggie McIntosh, Maryland House of Delegates

Date/Time: Saturday, August 18, 2018; 10:15 am – 11:15 am

MACo’s 2018 Summer Conference will be held Aug. 15-18 at the Roland Powell Convention Center, in Ocean City, MD.